Vengeful

• Author: V.E. Schwab
• Genre: Fantasy
• Publication Date: September 25, 2018
• Publisher: Tor Books
• Series: Villains #2

CONTENT WARNING: blood, murder, violence, infidelity, death, torture, chronic pain, substance use, medical experimentation, child abuse, suicide, forced drugging

A super-powered collision of extraordinary minds and vengeful intentions—#1 New York Times bestselling author V. E. Schwab returns with the thrilling follow-up to Vicious.

Magneto and Professor X. Superman and Lex Luthor. Victor Vale and Eli Ever. Sydney and Serena Clarke. Great partnerships, now soured on the vine.

But Marcella Riggins needs no one. Flush from her brush with death, she’s finally gained the control she’s always sought—and will use her new-found power to bring the city of Merit to its knees. She’ll do whatever it takes, collecting her own sidekicks, and leveraging the two most infamous EOs, Victor Vale and Eli Ever, against each other.

With Marcella’s rise, new enmities create opportunity–and the stage of Merit City will once again be set for a final, terrible reckoning.

Thank you to Becky @ Becky’s Book Blog because I couldn’t have managed to read this without completely losing my marbles. However, this was so unpredictable that we couldn’t come up with any of our usual outrageous theories. 

I was thrilled to start this, since I couldn’t stop thinking about this story after the first book. Even though I had finished weeks ago. The story picks up five years later, and the whole landscape has changed. Eli is in a jail of sorts, but a special one that has been made for EOs. Stell is now the director of this facility, owned by a corporation known as EON. 

We get to meet some new characters, but at first, it’s all about the ones that we know. I loved the Victor POVs, because he’s one of my favorites. We get to see how he’s changed and how his relationships to the others have grown even stronger. Despite his determination to be a loner and not to form any meaningful bonds, he’s become firmly entrenched in a found family unit:

“Attachment was a vexing thing, as pernicious as weeds. He should have left, before it ever took root.”

Readers also get to know Eli even more than we did before. We learn more about his background and upbringing, as well as how he’s fared since his arrest. His incarceration hasn’t removed his tendency towards conniving and manipulation, and he’s still trying to figure a way out of EON’s facility. 

If you are like me, and Sydney was your favorite character, you see plenty of her. She shows the most growth here, which is understandable. She’s gone from being an adolescent to being a young adult, even if she still looks the same age as when they first found her. I loved seeing her change from a kid to an almost-adult, and watching her become super badass, mostly. You know Dol is my other favorite, because who doesn’t love a dog?

But we get some new characters, and I loved getting to know them. There’s Marcella, a flashy new EO causing problems; Jonathan, who works with Marcella; and June, who has an awesome skill that puts her in the position to do a lot of damage. I found them all really interesting, and Schwab really excelled at creating a rather large cast of well-developed characters.

The story itself was fast-moving and exciting. I was limited in how much I could read because it was a buddy read, but after the discussion, I’d find myself reading the chapters immediately afterwards and blowing through them. The book itself is comprised of really short chapters that bounce back and forth in time and location, as well as between characters, but the voices are so very different that it is never confusing as to who is narrating. I was always able to keep track of where and when the action was occurring, and the structure made it feel compulsively readable, while the many POVs added depth and complexity to the story. 

Overall, this was a fantastic read, but I seriously need book 3 to come out immediately. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for all the people who read this series not knowing if there was ever going to *be* a book 3, because the ending is an open one that not only leaves the option for a sequel, but practically begs for it. If you haven’t picked up this series yet, what are you waiting for?

People who have sat around with me while I’m reading, especially when there’s a surprising reveal, a shocking plot twist, or an unexpected event often look up in alarm when I gasp audibly. The gasp factor is directly related to the number of times I audibly gasp during a reading, and there isn’t an upper limit.

Gasp Factor: 26